“Vince Baggetto has been designing kitchens for more than 30 years professionally and occasionally rehabbing houses for fun. When he spotted a 19th-century house in Kenwood that was sorely in need of revitalization, he knew it would start with the kitchen.
“The house, on a pretty block of Kimbark Avenue, ‘would need a gourmet kitchen,” Baggetto said, to complete the overdue 21st-century transition he had in mind.
“When Baggetto bought the house in May 2019, ‘it was collapsing in on itself. Rotting timbers, and everything we touched disintegrated.’ Its location in a landmark district where demolition is not allowed ‘was the only thing that kept it standing,’ he said.
“The house had windows on the exterior that had been covered over inside, updates that had lowered some ceilings, and four tons of unused brick chimney barely supported from below. ‘The turret was leaning,’ Baggetto said.
“Two years later, the six-bedroom, 5,270-square-foot house is almost entirely new, yet faithful to its 1890s origins and its neighbors, which are all of similar vintage. Baggetto is putting it on the market June 16. The asking price is $3.8 million.
“There was enough room behind the house for a kitchen addition, but that alone would max out the allowable square footage on the site. Baggetto turned this into an advantage by building two stories of porches above the new kitchen—because porches don’t count as interior square footage.
“The new three-story section is at the left in the image above. For the broad second-story porch, Baggetto duplicated the original columns on the front porch. From that and the third-story porch, he said, ‘your view is all the old houses around you. Slate roofs and brick chimneys.'” Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 6/16/21″
Read the full story with photos at Crain’s Chicago Business
4820 S Kimbark Avenue Listing Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices